Cougars advance to state wrestling final

Croatan (13-2) will take on West Lincoln (26-4) on Saturday in the state final

Rick Scoppe Daily News Staff jdnsports

BETHEL – So much for this being a rebuilding year for Croatan wrestling.

The Cougars advanced to their eighth – and most improbable – state championship match by defeating Wheatmore 36-28 on Thursday night in the NCHSAA 2-A dual team East Regional final at Bethel Elementary School.

Croatan (13-2) will take on West Lincoln (26-4) in the state finals Saturday at 3 p.m. at the Greensboro Coliseum fieldhouse. Croatan’s last trip to the state finals was 2015 – also against West Lincoln, which won 49-19.

West Lincoln beat Foard 35-28 to advance to the finals against the Cougars.

“It’s insane,” senior Sean O’Connell said. “We went our freshmen year and I just didn’t think I would be able to do it again.”

Croatan coach David Perry agreed it was the most improbable trip to the state finals in the program’s storied history.

“If the Las Vegas odds had been out on Croatan at the beginning of the year, they would not have been real good,” Perry said. “These kids just kept grinding, every week getting better. We kept saying we’re going to be real good in a couple years. We weren’t telling them that, but I guess somehow they said the heck with waiting two years.”

Croatan advanced to the semifinals with a dominating 53-21 victory over North Pitt, which picked up two of its wins by forfeits. The Cougars won nine of the first 11 matches.

Wheatmore beat Ledford 40-25 to advance.

Croatan was without 132-pound senior Clay Sanders (20-8), who has an injured hip and ribs. Sanders hopes to be ready to go for the East Regionals individual tournament next week.

In the regional final that started at 126 pounds, Wheatmore, which finishes 23-5, was up 15-6 when O’Connell pinned Wilmouth Shores with 11.9 seconds left in the opening period of their 152 pound match.

Along with cutting the lead to 3 points, that seemed to give the Cougars a huge momentum boast.

“I just knew I had to give it my all,” O’Connell said.

Then Sanford, who like O’Connell is a senior, won a 10-2 major decision over Alex Rodriguez at 160 and the Cougars had a lead they never lost at 16-15.

The win came after Perry disputed a stalling call with 6.3 seconds left that made it 8-1 – one point from a major decision and four team points instead of three. But Sanford got a takedown in the final seconds to claim the MD.

“After I found out they called me for stalling, coach Perry said I needed to shoot,” Sanford said. “I was like, ‘Okay, I can shoot,’ and then I shot and I took him down and got the major.”

That continued what became a strong roll by the Cougars.

Walker Gladwell won with a 14-4 major decision at 170, Kyle Kort earned a 3-1 decision at 182 on a takedown with 6.5 seconds left and Tyler Hall earned a 10-1 major decision at 195 to give Croatan a 27-15 lead.

“We got on a roll,” Perry said.

Nathan Waltrip’s 3-1 win at heavyweight made it to 30-19.

The Cougars clinched it at 113 when Luke Walker earned an injury default victory over Seth Miller just 41 seconds into the match.

“I was pretty confident we were going to win anyway,” Perry said. “Luke’s gotten better and better and better. He was getting ready to turn the kid. When he gets kids on their back typically they don’t get off.

“Yeah, I hate it for the kid, but I feel pretty confident we were going to get the win.”